


Honey

by babyrubysoho



Category: L'Arc~en~Ciel
Genre: Bittersweet, Control Freak Tetsu, Desert, Detached Hyde, Early Days, Filming, First Time, Hot Weather, M/M, Morocco - Freeform, Recreational Drug Use, Sensuality, Trippy, Young L'Arc
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-15
Updated: 2016-05-15
Packaged: 2018-06-08 13:57:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,108
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6857782
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/babyrubysoho/pseuds/babyrubysoho
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Filming in Morocco for ~Siesta~Field of Dreams, Sakura and Hyde imbibe a little too much of the local pot, and have a sensual experience that Sakura will never forget. Meanwhile, Tetsu gets Ken bitten by a camel.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Honey

**Author's Note:**

> Totally inspired by Ambrose Bierce's magnificent writing about the desert; I wanted to try and create something similar, in which nature creates a sensual and evocative atmosphere that leads to (in this case!) nookie :)
> 
> Much as I love Yukihiro, I can't get over how hot Sakura and Hyde were back in the day. And I'll never get tired of writing them! Yes, this makes me sound old...

Me and Hyde. Now _there's_ a book I should have closed a long time ago. But sometimes you just can't bring yourself to reach the final chapter.

I can pinpoint the exact moment it began, more than twenty years ago and half a world away.

 

* * *

 

The dry heat of Morocco was like a slap in the face when we stepped off the plane. That changed quick enough, mind, once they started setting up for filming. Ken-chan and I braved the morning glare of the sun and got to work on our tans as our stylist began the backbreaking process of turning my hair into a giant dandelion clock, while Tetsu and Hyde skulked under an umbrella casting baleful looks at the sky until it was their turn to be primped.

Smoking the loosely-rolled, heady cigarettes our hotel bellhop had sold me, I gradually felt the burning heat begin to transmute into a comfortable warmth, simmering away beneath my skin. Even the sting of the sand as the wind took it stopped being an irritant, the prickle against my face and limbs like slow darts of electricity. I felt lazy as a lizard, like I could sink into the elements: the golden ripples where the edge of the village met the dunes, the antique colour of the sky, bluer than any sky I ever saw in Japan. This, I decided, listening to Ken-chan snore beside me (now there's a man who can adapt to any habitat), was all right.

“Fucking sand!” Going by Hyde's swearing, our singer was taking longer to come to terms with Morocco than I was. I lounged with my newly-made-up eyes half closed and listened to him grumble away in his deep voice. In the next chair Tetsu was being stoic, with the occasional plaintive sneeze as yellow dust flew up his nose. Our stylist changed position to deal with the left side of Hyde's pale face; out of the shelter of her body a gust of the tricksy breeze caught his hair and blew it out into a rippling banner that twisted in the shimmering air like it was alive.

“Dammit!” Hyde clutched at it and wrestled the long locks back into obedience; but that hair had already done its work, prodding my libido awake like it had ever since the first time I saw it loose; and this new slow, vital flow of the desert through my veins set my imagination off on a stream of erotic tableaux of the younger man. Hyde had got up and stalked into the shade by this point (he didn't wear a lot of makeup back then, never needed to), the diaphanous, flowing white of his clothing glowing coolly through the heat haze. He looked like a petite, exotic princess, with his silver jewellery and great dark eyes, albeit one who spouted a fluid series of curse words in a bass Osaka accent between furious drags on a cigarette.

That made me snigger, which broke the spell a bit; but all through that afternoon I felt like I was already stoned, impressions vivid and languid at the same time, my memories of the filming a composite of parts instead of a coherent whole. I remember Hyde as a startlingly bright series of sensory images: the smell of coconut from his factor-million sunscreen, the sound of his low voice turning relaxed and ironic as he started to get used to the heat, the flash of his white skin against the tawny streets; and always, surrounding him, the sibilant hiss of the sand.

We packed up when the sun started going down, the glow igniting Hyde's hair for a moment in bronze. I felt my breath catch appreciatively, but it quickly subsided as my gurgling stomach put in a demand to be fed. Pausing only to rescue Tetsu, who was being mobbed by local kids (they recognize a soft touch), we rode the Jeep back to Marrakech. It took Tetsu and I a good half-hour to bully our hair back into normality, and by that time Ken-chan and Hyde were enjoying the dubious local wine with our manager in the outside bar.

“Take your time,” said Hyde, whose casual-wear in Morocco was so like his costume he might as well not have bothered to get changed. “We're bloody starving!”

“All right, keep your hair on,” I told him, giving him a chiding nudge (not too hard – if you're going to treat Hyde as one of the boys you have to remember how little he is, which I had learned to my cost one night when I got drunk and accidentally arm-wrestled him right off his bar stool). Hyde pouted, in the way that says he enjoys being teased, an expression I find uniformly adorable on his cool features; luckily, I was too hungry at the time to let it get me going.

“Tet-chan!” demanded Ken, who likes to be mothered though he'll never admit it, “can we have kebabs?”

“You can have whatever you like,” replied Tetsu affectionately; and then, with a flash of the Leader, “but don't you dare get food poisoning before the video's finished.”

And with that we all trooped out to stuff our faces.

That night the jet lag caught up with me, and once I was crammed full of rice and lamb and tobacco I dropped like a stone. I vaguely registered Hyde fidgeting around the various nooks and apartments of our shared room, and the quiet susurration of his breath as he finally dozed off on the couch. The sound seemed to follow me down into sleep, and I dreamed of his voice and the whispering sand.

 

* * *

 

I was rudely awakened by Tetsu in full dictatorial mode, going “Up! Up!” as he prodded the prone lump of white linen and hair that was Hyde.

“Wfff...” mumbled Hyde indistinctly, and stretched, screwing up his tiny face into an expression of sleepy displeasure. Tetsu, who occupied a distinct moral high ground having not personally polished off a gallon of wine the night before, began to coax him off the couch with the prospect of alkaseltzer and cold showers.

“Don't even think about going back to sleep, Sakura!” warned Tetsu as I attempted to flop back in bed. “You're next!” He led Hyde away, the smaller man complaining _sotto voce_ ; but it's hard to say no to Tetsu, especially since he has the cruel advantage of being a morning person. I clambered reluctantly out of my pit; the smooth stone of the floor was cool, but the air was already beginning to resonate with heat. It drew me the way it had the previous morning; I cautiously opened one of the shutters and the room immediately sprang into orange light as the sun blazed in. Warmth washed through me, rhythmic and relentless; I could almost feel my pulse beating in the still air. There really was something different about this place, I realized, blinking as I looked down into the streets, where the dust was already rising. As if things could happen here, things that would be inarticulable at home.

In this frame of mind I wandered downstairs to the lobby, where I found I had kept everyone waiting. Tetsu gave me one of his patented anxious looks as he escorted a sleep-walking Ken-chan out to the Jeep, but seeing as this is his default expression I felt safe to ignore it.

The morning's filming went on at breakneck pace, I was assured afterwards; but at the time it felt almost slow-motion, in the pleasantest way possible, as if the air were physically thick with the heat and we had to move through it like it was amber. The only thing that had any speed was the wind, carrying the omnipresent sand with it and whipping Hyde's unruly hair into a sinuous torrent (my own 'do and Tetsu's were so full of gel you couldn't have moved them with a jet engine).

Happily, Hyde seemed to have got over his irritation with the weather and everything pertaining to it. He kept as much as possible under one of the big umbrellas, determined not to let the UV have its way with his pale skin; but I could tell he was fitting into his surroundings better, not fighting the heat but letting it soak into him through his white clothing. He tipped his head back, giving me a view of his long throat as he basked in the shade, observing Ken-chan's art-school antics with his eyes half-closed like a cat, his small frame loose-limbed and liquid in the folding chair. I wondered if he was starting to feel an echo of it, this odd thing that came out of the desert and was seeping into my bones.

Hyde flicked his gaze my way, tying his hair in a loose knot that tumbled down one side of his neck. He caught me looking and yawned at me good-naturedly, displaying his small, sharp teeth in a way that sent a frisson of electricity along my spine, abrasive as sand. Then he was up and out of the chair, strolling leisurely over to where Ken-chan was obsessing about heat and guitar necks and warping.

“It's ok,” Tetsu told him consolingly, “they said we're on schedule. So we can stop for now and relax.”

This was not a word we often heard coming out of our leader's mouth, so of course we all jumped on it and made him promise to let us have the rest of the day off.

“I said so, didn't I?” said Tetsu once we were having lunch on the shady hotel terrace, looking mildly offended at our correct interpretation of his workaholic nature. “So, what does everyone feel like?”

“Let's go out!” said Ken-chan, ever specific, “and do things.”

“Shopping,” suggested Tetsu, on cue.

“Drinking?” countered the guitarist. “Or we could go swimming somewhere.” Tetsu rebuffed this with more opinions, and the two of them began their usual mild interchange that wasn't really an argument. Hyde and I wisely kept quiet.

“Let's go find some music,” said Ken-chan, which of course got Tetsu's approval.

“Good!” pronounced Tetsu. “And _then_ go shopping.”

I stopped listening, because I knew Tetsu was going to let his best friend have his own way, safe in the knowledge that Ken-chan would defer to him in the end anyway.

“All right,” Tetsu said eagerly, once all this was settled according to the usual formula. “We should go and get ready!”

“Actually,” I told them, while I could get a word in edgewise, “I think I'm gonna give it a miss today, after last night and all. I'll just chill out here.”

“If you like,” said Tetsu, giving me a prim look as befits a man who is capable of drinking alcohol in moderation. “If we find anything nice we'll bring you back some.”

“Cheers.”

“...I'm going to pass too,” came Hyde's laconic voice, once he'd observed that I wasn't about to get bollocked by Tetsu for skipping a work outing. “Missing my sleep.” He shot me a glance, then, that was neutral enough but which sent another wave of that tingling warmth through me.

“No problem!” Ken-chan gave us one of his broad, relaxed grins. “I reckon me and Tet-chan can handle enough sight-seeing for four.”

And so it was decided.

 

 

By the time Hyde and I got back to our room the sun had climbed above the meridian and was starting its slow slide down the sky on the opposite side of the hotel. The room had dimmed a bit but retained its slumberous heat, just an occasional breeze wafting through the space from one of the little culverts and off-shoots to the main chamber. Hyde immediately dumped his bag, removed his earrings and other paraphernalia, and padded off into the spacious bathroom, his small feet silent on the tiled floor. I heard the sound of the water running and snatches of his particular absent-minded hum, so deep as to be almost tuneless.

This, signalled my libido, could be interesting, given Hyde's often physical effect on me and his unspoken awareness of it, and the tacit understanding we had reached to do nothing about it. For once, though, I didn't experience the same sense of urgency that images of, e.g., our vocalist in the shower usually prompted. Instead, the feeling of contentment and come-what-may curiosity instilled in me by the place allowed me to flop down in the cushioned depression at the centre of the room and let it all go by.

At one point the fragrance of Hyde's soap set me off slightly; luckily, at almost the same moment a knock at the door heralded our bellhop, with whom I had apparently got drunkenly chummy the previous night and who had now come up on the quiet to offer me some of the region's delightfully low-price and high-quality hash. Needless to say I decided to indulge, given that this _was_ a holiday.

Hyde reacted when he emerged from the bathroom with nothing but a raised eyebrow, which was milder than I had anticipated for someone who had spent so long working with Tetsu.

“Where did you get _that_?” He sounded amused. I waved the joint at him.

“Youssef.”

“Hmm.” Hyde made the ambiguous little noise between a rumble and a purr that says you're being an idiot but that he doesn't intend to stop you. I watched him lazily through a spiral of blue smoke as he approached, stepping down into my cushion-strewn hollow and taking a seat opposite me.

“Isn't that my shirt?” I pointed my spliff at him, referring to the shapeless, burnous-type object in white cheesecloth that Tetsu had foisted on me after being sold it by some enterprising street hawker. On Hyde it reached his knees and swallowed his hands to the tips of his fingers.

“It was on the bathroom door.” Hyde shrugged, baring the edge of one collar-bone in the process. My libido sniffed the air again. He took down his damp hair and shook it out, a curtain that fell over his shoulder in luxurious abundance, curling with moisture. “God, it's hot,” he commented sonorously but without apparent annoyance, leaning back cross-legged so the cheap fabric pooled in his lap. I took another deep inhale, enjoying the slow giddiness of the smoke and watching the dust dance around him, picked out by the sun in flecks of light. His beauty, right then, was absolutely unconscious, effortless, and I couldn't help but relish it.

“You going to bed, then?” I asked; he seemed to shimmer, a haze of wavering brightness pouring through the open window to catch his hair and skin, a faint sheen of sweat already rising at the base of his throat. Hyde gave me that yawn again, then shut his mouth with a click of his white teeth, reminding me once more of a little desert cat.

“Maybe. In a bit.” He reached out a hand. “Give me.” Now it was my turn to raise my eyebrows in surprise.

“You sure about that? It's strong.” Hyde waved his hand dismissively.

“We _are_ on holiday.” Well, you couldn't argue with that, given that I'd just used the same line on myself. Hyde turned his head to face the window, gravitating towards the source of the heat, and I got a long glimpse of his magnificent profile. “And you know...” he continued, low voice turning pensive, “this place is... Well, d'you know what I mean?”

“I know,” I said calmly, though inside I was abuzz with quiet excitement. He did feel it too! And seemed to be having as much trouble as me at putting it into words, the seduction of this city. He glowed in the light. In my slightly stoned state, all that gilded beauty felt terribly significant, although if you'd pressed me I would have been woefully unable to describe why.

“Anyway,” said Hyde, clearly feeling that my pause had strayed into the realm of the socially inept, “hand it over.” I blinked and did so, watched his lips close around the rolled paper as he breathed in, holding the smoke in his lungs and then letting it go to obscure his face in an ethereal haze. “...Yeah, strong,” was his only comment. He blinked a few times, leaned back regally in the cushions and made himself more comfortable. I relieved him of the joint before he could have too many goes on it: Youssef had been pretty generous when he rolled it, and I didn't trust its effects on Hyde's miniature frame.

“Have you noticed,” probed Hyde, after a drawn-out period of silence in which I did nothing but smoke and stare at the line of his body while he gazed fixedly at a point behind my head, “how the clock has slowed down?” So that was what he'd been looking at. Hyde traced the twelve hours in a circle in the air with his finger. “...Slowed right down.” That made me laugh, helped along by the hash.

“Three drags and you're high already?”

He scowled at me benevolently. I relented and held out the joint again, half curious to see if it would bring him any closer to the sparking sense of potential I was feeling or whether it would just make him talk bollocks. Hyde leaned forward bonelessly and put his lips to the spliff still glowing between my fingers, long hair falling against my wrist and one slim calf brushing my knee. The fizz of possibility shot through me again as he raised those dark eyes to meet mine, then sat back grinning and tucked his hair behind his ear. He exhaled slowly, deliberately, the air now a veil between us.

I had always thought, given my constant light flirtations and the tolerance with which he received them, that if I ever chose to make a move on Hyde he might allow it. I also knew, was sure both of us knew, that it would be generally unwise and more trouble than it was worth, which was why I never had. But in the heat and hash-fuelled serenity at the old centre of Marrakech I felt myself being prompted to reconsider as he sat there, looking so poised and receptive. Hyde nudged my knee with his foot, the shirt riding up his leg. His skin gleamed in the torrid warmth.

“What?” he demanded, lazily. And then, “quit hogging it. Give me some more.” One of the faint, perplexing breezes blew through, a breath of hotter air that stirred the hair against his neck. All right, then. I put the joint to my mouth and took a long, luxurious drag. Hyde raised another languid eyebrow at me. I held the smoke and reached out, slow as if I were underwater and dust sparkling in my wake, to grasp his chin with one hand. Hyde just looked at me, as if he were already complicit in whatever the hell was going to happen next, like he felt guided from the outside as much as me and had decided to simply run with it.

“Come here,” I mouthed without exhaling. I drew him forward; at close range his eyes were black, pupils dilated with the drug. I could smell soap on him, then the salt of sweat and the fragrant scent of hash. Hyde leaned in to me confidently, blurring in my vision as he got closer. I took a firmer grip on his fine-boned jaw and nudged him until he obligingly opened his mouth, until I could breathe the smoke into him. He inhaled, and all my senses were expanding to fully enjoy his proximity when he abruptly closed the inch between us and pressed his lips against mine.

I was still in the grip of that slow-moving inertia, caught between the hash and the soporific heat, and he had moved so quickly it didn't register for a moment. The next instant I felt the sting of sand all across my body, only this time it was his skin that had sparked it, smooth and smouldering against my mouth and beneath my fingers. Hyde broke off with a little gasp as he ran out of breath, and I released my hold on him to slide my fingers behind his neck. I caught his faint shiver but there was no hesitation in him, both of us finally operating on the same wavelength, a slow, clinging static between his body and mine.

“Sakura,” said Hyde, sounding rather stoned but smug as a fireside cat. Then he was above me, bare thigh pressed against the cotton of my shorts and small hands resting on my shoulders for balance. I buried my face in the thick mane of his hair as it tumbled down between us, warm and soft and webbed with the scents of smoke and shampoo. It was as good as I had always imagined, and I breathed him in rapturously, my hands closing slowly around his ribcage, small and light as a bird. I lifted him easily into my lap, and he let slip a low, gratified sound and wound one arm around my neck.

The heat of him was incredible, burning intense as an ember, so it seemed that when my lips met his throat I might have scorched myself if I hadn't spent the last two days absorbing the sun of the desert like a gecko. I wondered if I felt the same to him; if I did, he evidently liked it, pressing closer into my hands as I began to kiss him, fervent and unhurried, tasting salt and cologne in the damp hollow between his collar-bones.

Hyde, who is generally very articulate, as is appropriate for a singer, was keeping pretty quiet, though the speed and irregularity of his breath against my ear gave me a good indication of how he was reacting. Then his short fingers had slipped down to tug at the hem of my tshirt and pull it up over my head, his neat little nails a tantalising whisper of sensation as they traced the course of my spine, hair spilling over my bare skin. Nothing felt urgent, that was the oddest thing, and I wasn't even aware I was hard until he settled more comfortably in my lap and made it very apparent. Hyde lifted his head just long enough to shoot me one of his lazy half-smiles, then leaned down again and kissed me deeply, his tongue a flicker of liquid fire against mine. His hand slid beneath my waistband.

It was about this point that I almost set the bedroom alight, and not in a sexy metaphorical way, as I knocked the abandoned spliff onto a cushion. That did call for a certain amount of urgency and light charring. By the time I turned back Hyde was naked, his awful shirt a discarded pile amid the silk of the pillows. I drew in a long breath, and held it, every sense working overtime. I could have watched him forever: in my drugged vision he looked almost translucent, and I realised how dark it had got, his white skin melting into the shadows.

“ _Sakura_ ,” Hyde said again, voice soft and deep as the night as I continued to stare at him, another of those mysterious breezes fanning his hair into life. “Come get me.”

So I did.

 

* * *

 

When I woke up, it was for once without the benefit of Tetsu's nagging. The room was still almost dark, though I could see the faint corona of light around the shutters that promised another day of glaring heat. I felt...different. Full. It took a few moments to remember enough about the previous night to put this down to the after-effects of hash. Then I peered drowsily over the edge of the bed (how had I got in it? When?) and registered my singer, nestled in the concave space on the cool floor, his lovely hair a cloud that trailed across the sky-blue silk of the cushions.

I blinked, _then_ remembered. Began to, anyway. Below me Hyde pushed himself up on his elbows and stretched, a tired, fluid movement that was quite beautiful to watch. Bloody hell. My brain flashed up a series of memories, there and gone again: the blaze of his skin, the sinuous arch of his spine under my lips, the pads of his fingers walking my body. I exhaled carefully, trying not to lose the images. Hyde turned and caught me staring, and I experienced a pang of nerves I've never felt with a woman.

“I'm hungry,” he told me, in his usual grouchy morning tone, and I found myself grinning; whatever I had done to him last night, it didn't seem to have thrown him. “And it's too hot.”

“You,” I said indulgently, sitting up in bed with an effort, “look fucking delicious.”

“Hmph.” Hyde tossed his head but gave me a momentary grin, then wrapped a sheet haphazardly around himself as a knock sounded at the door. Luckily it was only Youssef, who barely glanced at Hyde's dishabille or my own sleepless visage, as though he had seen it all before. Well-versed in the ways of the casual stoner, he had brought breakfast, as well as another off-the-books offer of more hash that night.

“Yes please!” said Hyde, with his mouth full. Once Youssef had been suitably over-tipped and had beaten a silent retreat, I slid out of bed to sit beside him. I wasn't actually hungry, which was just as well because in those days Hyde ate like a gannet. I felt replete with a kind of well-being that had nothing to do with food or getting high.

“You really want more,” I stated, making it half a question. Hyde shot me a sidelong glance, the line of his expressive mouth suddenly thoughtful.

“Here,” he said, making a vague, dreamy gesture that appeared to take in the whole of Morocco as well as our room. “Yes,” he continued, after a pause. “... _Here_ , anything.” I set a friendly hand on his shoulder to show that I got it, that I agreed with the qualifier; his skin was smooth and warm as a sun-bleached pebble, and he half turned towards me before catching sight of the clock and sighing.

I shook off the mood as best I could, because the last thing I needed was to go on camera this morning with every glimpse of Hyde over-exciting me.

“Up you get, lazybones!” I ordered, catching him under the arms and pulling him up to his feet so that he dropped his third croissant. Hyde growled but tolerated the indignity as he generally did when it came from me, and slouched off to rummage around in his suitcase. I followed suit, and after a cold shower with the door carefully shutting him out I was feeling more like a professional musician again.

This was not before time, as we hadn't been changed long before our dear leader appeared: for Tetsu on a schedule knocking is something that happens to other people, though if he tried it again on this trip he might just see something to make him think twice next time.

“You're up!” he exclaimed, goggling. Hyde gave him a happy wave, which made him narrow his eyes suspiciously because _morning_ and _happy_ are not concepts with which Hyde has very much to do.

“Is Ken-chan ready?” asked Hyde, again uncharacteristically concerned with the welfare of others at such an early hour.

“I'll worry about Ken-chan.” Tetsu caught sight of the remains of last night's joint, sniffed the air pointedly and glared at us. Hyde gave it his best wide-eyed baby-animal look, which worked as well as it always did and meant _I_ was in the shit with Tetsu all morning for trying to get my vocalist high.

 

* * *

 

We were a pensive bunch on the way to filming. Hyde stared out at the approaching mountains and the intervening mirages on the parched road, humming to himself in a soft voice that cracked attractively on the bass notes. Ken-chan was still smarting from being bitten by a camel Tetsu had tried to make friends with (most of the inadvisable stuff Tetsu does ends up rebounding on Ken, which is all to the good since he's much better equipped to cope with it and so laid-back he doesn't care). The whole day passed like that, in a peculiar but comfortable kind of silence, every move I made charged with the awareness of Hyde's level gaze. By the time night fell I was about ready to ignite; Hyde wriggled his way between Ken-chan and I to claim the centre seat in the back of the Jeep, and pressed up against me happily. I set my jaw: I could hold on for another hour. Surely.

An hour later I was leaning out of our window, still holding on, because Hyde was stuffing his face again and had made it clear that _I_ wouldn't be getting any dessert until _he_ was done with dinner. So there I was, hoping that the evening breeze would help me curb the urge to sling him over my shoulder, carry him off and devour him. This effort to kill the mood was usefully enhanced by the sound of our bandmates yapping over their after-dinner hookah.

“I'm worried,” came Tetsu's voice faintly through the trellis from the garden below me. “They're being _weird_. Well...more than usual.”

“You're on holiday, Tet-chan”, Ken said, in the tone best geared to deal with Tetsu's obsessing. “And so are they.”

“Sakura's a bad influence,” Tetsu answered grumpily. I grinned.

“And Hyde's no angel,” countered Ken-chan, sounding like he was about to laugh. “He just looks like one. Come on,” he continued, as Tetsu evidently refused to be consoled, “just let them get on with it. It's different here. Once we get home it'll be the same as ever it was.”

Armed with this free pass from our happy-go-lucky guitarist to essentially jump Hyde wherever a flat surface presented itself for the remainder of the week, I shut the window in satisfaction and went to get him.

“Are you still eating?” I demanded, striding over to the low table and addressing Hyde, who was reclining amid the silk cushions like he was born to it and foraging among the puddings.

“I was waiting for you,” lied Hyde shamelessly as I dropped down beside him, giving me an arch look down his elegant nose and taking a swig of amber-coloured wine. “Now light me up.” I whipped a fresh joint out of my back pocket and ignited it, holding it just out of his reach so that he had to lean in towards me to get it. I got a kiss out of him on the way, the heat and sweetness of his lips as shocking as the previous night. Hyde gave a deep rumble of satisfaction as he inhaled, and I took the opportunity to tug the buttons of his shirt open, sliding my hand possessively up the smooth line of his spine. He shuddered beneath my fingers and breathed the dizzying smoke into my mouth.

“Hacchan,” I muttered, and set my lips to the hyper-sensitive spot behind his left ear. Those great big eyes fluttered closed and he caught his breath; but he was still rummaging around on the table. I gave up the idea of sweet-talking him, and grinned against his neck. “Greedy bastard. Think you can have it all, don't you.”

“Well, can't I?” said Hyde smugly, one hand sinking into my hair while the other grabbed triumphantly at one of the sweet yellow peaches that would cost the earth in Tokyo. Hyde always was a cocky brat, but that's part of his charm. He bit into the peach, careless of being tidy as the juice spilled down his chin to glisten on his narrow chest. I leaned in and kissed him again, tasting the sweetness along his throat and over his small, hard nipple. He carried on eating, swallowed, and threw the peach stone in the general direction of the window, reaching down to bury his sticky hands in my hair as I bit him.

“Keep still,” I told him indistinctly, tipping him onto his back with a thump. “You're a mess.” Hyde snorted at that and stuck one arm out, making a grab for the honey and biscuits. All these foods, I reflected while he trailed the gold liquid into his mouth, were suspiciously appropriate for having abandoned, _9 ½ Weeks_ sex on the floor; we must have been a familiar cliché to Youssef, for him to have come up with this little dessert selection: yet another pair of first-world tourists coming to this exotic place to mess with so-called spiritual expansion and indulge in fantastic, erotic games we couldn't take back home. The fact that we were two guys was probably neither here nor there at this point.

Well, it worked for me. I kissed Hyde again, his lips molten with honey, and then in another of those long blinks of lost time he was naked and I was getting there and both of us were sticky all over our skin. His long hair tangled up with mine as he wrestled his way atop me; I gave in gracefully and abandoned myself to the mercy of his mouth and caressing hands.

Looking back afterwards, I could never remember any logical sequence to this fleeting series of trysts. I know I fucked him: I wouldn't forget that, the particular intensity of it, the heat and tightness, and the sight of his exquisite face and wide, dark eyes as I moved inside him. But it was just one kind of intensity among a myriad of other, less focused delights; sex wasn't the end, the goal, I mean, but a point in a web of pleasure. I just knew that I never wanted it to stop.

 

* * *

 

“Sakura,” said Hyde lazily, the night before we were due to leave. He was using me as a pillow, long hair trailing over my chest and tickling me with every movement of his head as he followed the path of a stray moth around the room.

“Hmm?”

“...You know tonight is as far as we go.” He reached up affectionately to stroke my jaw. “Right?” He registered my nod under his fingers and nuzzled his head against me. “It's just for the best.”

“I know it,” I told him equably.

“It's been fun.” Hyde clammed up after that and lay there quietly. After a minute he groped for my hand and raised it to his mouth, touching his lips to my knuckles. I wasn't sure what to make of that: in the week we had been here I thought I had run the gamut of Hyde's physical communication. He was a sexual dynamo all right, and he wasn't afraid of _anything_ ; but this one careful caress felt different, and made something tighten under my ribs, as if it had conveyed more to my heart than all the long nights of intoxication we had spent together.

“Hacchan,” I said, and pulled him up to kiss me, his tiny, confident body slick and warm above mine. He gave me one second's solemn stare, then that wry half-smile, and as he did so I felt something turn over inside me. It wasn't until years later that I realised what it was, just what those dreamlike hours in the heat haze of Morocco had done to me. At the time I just grinned back at him and rolled him over to pin him against the cool stone, and fucked him one last time with the gleeful short-sightedness of a kid who thinks the whole world is waiting for him. Hyde gazed up at me with his beautiful, inscrutable eyes and sang to me in that voice that would one day set Japan ablaze. And then we showered, had some more desultory chat and calmly went to sleep.

The next morning we woke up in time for about five minutes of frantic packing to the accompaniment of Hyde's fluent curse-words and Tetsu's Leader stare, Ken-chan yawning behind him. We stopped once on the way to the airport for the souvenirs Hyde and I had unfathomably not had time to get before. Hyde turned away from the stall, its trinkets chiming and rustling in the breeze that set his hair snapping like a flag in the warm air. That image stayed with me a long time: the gold and bright shadows and the shimmer of heat, and Hyde at the centre of all of it.

Then we came home.


End file.
